2003 Kia Rio RXV review from North America

2400km - lost wheelcaps.

8500km - shifter knob decal broke.

Here in Canada Kia is only 2 years old, so there isn't much history to base a purchase on, but after looking at the Echo, Focus, and other smaller used cars my last stop was KIA (I almost never even did this due to negative word of mouth stuff). While I was looking at the Rio sedan I saw the Cinqo and loved the look of it, and when I asked the price and they said 16K I couldn't believe it. And took a silver one home that week after having them install a retractable moonroof.

1 year later I can't believe the car runs like a new car still, which is amazing since I abuse it badly. I do a lot of camping and fishing here in Vancouver and on 1 trip to the Cascades in Washington some deer happened to be in the middle of the road on a blind corner... needless to say I did some panic steering and missed them, but rolled the car onto its driver side so that my window had dirt on it, then it settled back on its tires Very roughly. Guess what? not a scratch or mark on the panels... nothing... but the aluminum rims did get scratched up, and the front chin panel cracked right through.

I noticed one day that 2 of my wheel caps were gone. I thought someone stole them, then a month or so later all 4 were gone. At this time the cap on the shifter where the numbers for the different gears broke and came off. (this is just cosmetic) so on my next dealer tune-up I told them about this and they replaced everything at no-charge. It turns out the the first batch of wheel caps didn't have a retaining ring and were flying off. They have it now LOL.

My only change I would make with a future model is about 25 to 30 more horsepower (for going up those ski hill roads fully loaded) and there are ways to get this even now (short ram or cold air intake).

It's not a Protege or WRX and looks very similar to the Mercedes sportwagon (c230?), but its toughness and economy are great and have me doing things with it I wouldn't do with the others in it's class, and it's price lets a person just throw on every option and still have cash left over.